Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Celebrating the just-past full moon in June, here's another little oddity from the late Nineties, when our man was happy to do recitations for just about anybody who asked. Mr. Cale recorded this poem as a spoken-word piece for the Kerouac tribute Kicks Joy Darkness. I can only assume he composed the music as well, as the quasi-ambient keyboards certainly fit his style and sound. There's not really that much to discuss in the content: analysis of Kerouac certainly isn't my game.

I will say that I prefer Cale's planetarium-music reading of the piece to the author's own looney tunes take (props to Funeral Pudding), though Cale's recitation of "little spritely otay" is probably the most sheepish he's ever sounded on record. In parts, he makes Kerouac's writing sound like Dylan Thomas, which is something of an achievement.

I'd really like to make this available for download, but it's on Amazon MP3. Warren Zevon's recording of Running Through Chinese Poem Song, another poem about the moon (a jaundiced look at Apollo), is worth picking up for contrast. (Note: Amazon's track artist listings are completely wrong for this album. Which is somewhat appropriate.)